Battlefield 3’s Armoured Kill Looks Like Quite The Thing

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Our news-pumped chums at VG247 recently talked to Patrick Bach from DICE about the upcoming Armoured Kill DLC for Battlefield 3: huge maps on which tanks and other vehicles do endless full-metal biff to each other. There’s a bunch of new footage of the maps and modes in the video, which you can see below, albeit largely filmed from a screen. This DLC is actually tipping me back towards playing Battlefield 3 again, since I’ve been pondering which multiplayer game I need to lurch my way into in the winter months. Additionally, “Tank Superiority mode” sounds like something I need to spend some time with.

102 Comments

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Its called choice, and as a consumer – I’d like one. With BF3 there is no choice at all, given it is tied to the game.

EA’s attempt to circumvent a successful service, in the shape of Steam, and avoid the middle man, taking all the profits for themselves – is both obvious and ugly, and should not be endorsed.

Publishers are like the fat cats of the record industry and reward success by continually repeating successful formulas, milking them dry, until the market moves on. Naturally, they then try and copy the new formula. With EA, that has been the case with BF3 aping Call of Duty, and SWTOR aping WoW.

I’d be happy to see Activision, EA, Ubisoft, all go the same way the record industry is going. THQ are close, and are happy to release an unfinished, poorly ported, buggy game for the PC, and take your money – albeit a week later. I’d rather give my money directly to the game maker if at all possible, rather than witness them being denied profits, based on Metacritic scores and marketing failures. I’d rather champion studios like CDprojectRed or the newer Kickstarter projects than give my money to EA via Origin. So yeah; Screw Origin and all it represents.

Last I checked, more games force Steam on you then Origin is forced on you with.
As long as you use Steam in an arugment with choiice, it kinda makes everything you say invalid, as Steam, is forced upon you with multiple titles, Like Call of Duty, like, Half Life, like CS, like Prototype 2, like Sleeping Dogs, and the list can continue for miles down here.
So no, No steam, no buy, isn’t about choice, as steam works against what you just said, which is choice.

CoD is forcing steam ? From their website there’s not even a steam link to shop to.

Also, it’s different to have to buy on a shop, and to have to use a gaming hub. You can buy Origin or Steam keys on other shops (DLGamer being often cheaper than those). Now every company can make it’s own hub and even their own OS to play their games : the limit is a tradeoff between what’s practical and what’s the gain for the customer. Does origing bring something significantly better than steam on the table ? Because else, the simple fact that it exists harms every gamer. It’s another app to get running, to fill a profile, edit a friendlist, etc ; it splits communities, etc.

My understanding is that Origin doesn’t bring anything that is worth getting those big cons, so we have to assume it’s something for EA interest against gamers interest. And boo them.

Didden, I hope that was a typo because Battlefield came before Call of Duty and WoW is no original idea in itself, it apes Everquest, Asheron’s Call, Dark Age of Camelot and all those MMOs that came before it because that is what iteration is all about.

I never see what should be the number one argument against Origin and keep seeing the same posts over and over again, which is to mention that terrible argument that Origin is different from Steam in functionality, an argument which can’t be made.

I’m not against Origin or UPlay for being restrictive DRM services, I’m against those platforms because of the abominable EA and Ubisoft behind them which have zero goodwill toward their customers. From Dust? Removing games from Steam only to put them back on the platform later? Smashing good companies like Pandemic and draining their will to live, to the mass exodus of employees from EA/Bioware to Overhaul Games which are now working on Baldur’s Gate Enhanced WITH Mass Effect’s Sam Hulick doing the soundtrack?

There is no guarantee their DRM terms won’t become more restrictive or they won’t try to hurt consumers in another way, while Valve repeatedly helps the indie gaming market and is currently expanding functionality to Linux machines.

Hmm. Who do I trust? Do I care that a company released a platform to put their games on? No. I care that _EA_ released a platform to put their games on. I patronize Green Man Gaming and GamersGate and many others, but Origin is EA, and Impulse is GameStop, and I stopped using Impulse because Gamestop is historically hurtful to consumers, and I feel the same way about EA and Ubisoft, with all the things they continue to do to try and control/kill gaming on the PC.

While origin(ally) I thought people trying to protest Origin were heroes, now that the game has been released and is megasuccessful, you are all just fooling yourselves. EA isnt going to get rid of Origin at this point, and you are not going to play BF3 unless you have it.
Quit QQing and just get the game, unless you are gonna complain ingame, in which case dont.

So, because EA won’t change their ways, that means we should just accept it, bend over and buy their game? I wouldn’t mind playing BF3 (though, from what people are saying, it sucks compared to every other Battlefield except 1943), but not if I have to use Origin. I only use Steam because they have awesome sales, so I grab games at rental prices and treat it as a rental service, so that I don’t rage too much when it goes down.

Some people might boycott, then stop boycotting when it seems they’ve failed, others (like myself) aren’t just boycotting out of some moral urge – they simply do NOT want the product the way it is.

Yeah. Steam compared to Origin? Steam does everything and everything for you, while Origin does not. Originally I despised Steam because when it came out, it didn’t even sell games. Origin is going to have to do a lot more to impress me or even make me feel like it has a place beside other digital retail services, but as it is, it’s just the place I go to play my EA games. I don’t see the sense in buying anything else on it when I can’t even be assured, due to the big mess with their EULA a while ago, that since EA is such a terrible company they won’t revoke my privileges to my purchased games at some point in the future, or because I diss an EA game on the forums they won’t ban my from playing Dragon Age II.

Or prevent me from playing Knights of the Old Republic online because they’re such nice people who care for me and only want to deliver the best experience. Or have devs posting on Metacritic praising their game.

What? NO! That kind of stuff doesn’t REALLY happen with Origin, does it? It couldn’t possibly! Couldn’t possibly be proven news stories in recent history which point to EA’s untrustworthy behavior.

They way I use Steam and Origin, the later is WAAAAAY better. Not ONCE, I kid you not, NOT ONCE have I not been able to play a game due to Origin. While with Steam some functionality on the other hand seem to have been designed by a moron, who life in a perfect world with ponies and shit.

Fairly obvious. Without the anti-missile counter measures, as a fighter pilot, you are severely disadvantaged and frustrated until you get to the highest tiers of pilot-dom.

The same went for armored vehicles, and even for infantry combat. Newbies have a very hard time of everything, like medics without their freaking defib paddles, or the recon using a sniper rifle without the straight pull bolt against other snipers who not only do, but have longer ranged, more powerful sniper rifles.

Instead of the SKS and SVD you’re given to start. You don’t have to pay, but the game is severely imbalanced due to the favoritism for those people who have played more than others.

My point is that you couldn’t buy unlocks for a fairly long time into the life of the game (long enough for me to unlocked everything for every vehicle and stop playing for many months), it wasn’t designed as pay to win.

The only issue is flares, but most good jet pilots don’t use AA missiles anyway, cannons are far more effective and the missile slot is better used for other things.

i bite my thumb at thee console focused shooters. Looks nice, but BF3 is still a huge disappointment to true(PC) BF fans. its far too console focused with small changes all over the place that make the game casual. DICE is dead as far as im concerned. Id rather support War of the Roses as its made by a former DICE member that had the integrity to leave when EA came along

I remember playing 1942 when it first came out and being surprised at how arcade-y the movement and weapon handling felt. And it wasn’t like I was some Operation Flashpoint-playing super-realism guy back then either.

Wasn’t that was the point and the appeal of Battlefield 1942 when it came out? All the cool toys of the more realistic, combined arms games like WW2 Online with a Quake-like pick-up-and-play, casual feel?

It was never a niche HC game (except for Project Reality, which was a fantastic mod), but BF3 is very casual compared to BF2.

They removed all the tools for organized teamwork. While you can argue commanders often didn’t do their job properly in BF2, when they did, the experience was absolutely great. Having one person ordering squads in 32vs32 player game is essential if you want even a hint of strategy and tactics. Now it’s impossible and in every single match the players just run around like headless chickens.

They also introduced mechanics like a ridiculous scope glint, which instantly reveals any recon from any distance. It promotes using sniper rifles just for their damage Counter Strike -style, instead of finding a good place to hide, spot enemies and kill infantry. The reason for this is simply the fact casual players don’t want hard counters, but instead a chance to fight back in any situation. When they die to a sniper’s bullet, they whine it’s unfair instead of alerting the chopper pilot to go kill the sniper.

The vehicles in BF3 are also a joke, they were made of paper in vanilla BF2 as well, but now you can destroy Abrams with a few rocket propelled grenades to the front armor. The vehicles aren’t a powerful and valuable asset for the team, but instead almost equals to infantry. You can shoot rockets to infantry unit’s feet and they don’t die.

Basically BF3 isn’t a team-based war game, but an arcade shooter about individual players, where objectives just give a context to mindless slaughter.

ARMA 3 will be quite the opposite and Bohemia does a lot of things right, like supporting the modding scene instead of attempting to kill it. However, it wouldn’t hurt to have other good war games than ARMA.

I have to say, it doesn’t seem fair to suggest that the DICE employees who still work there post-EA lack integrity. On the contrary, you could say that jumping ship and leaving your colleagues would be a lack of integrity.

I imagine a lot of employees would have had families to consider, being branded as lacking integrity for not wanting to uproot their lives and families seems a tad harsh.

Besides, what’s wrong with not wanting to let new management so to speak stop you from continuing to do a job you enjoy, and what’s to say that developers working under EA (or any publisher) actually agree with all (or any of) the unscrupulous decisions made?

This made me a little more excited for AW. I primarily play infantry so I’m still interested to see how that works. The large open areas practically eliminates the option of jumping out of your vehicle just before it explodes, because then you are on foot in the middle of nowhere.

What bothers me most, is that although the maps look huge, much of the tank combat takes place in a 10 m radius… Not what I had in mind.
Also: The mighty gunship in the sky is not new… Desert Combat Mod for BF’42 had it first ;)

I’m glad I’m not buying any more EA games. BF3 vanilla is bad enough with the number of tank-whores that dominate the game, and given DICE’s release history Armored Kill will be so unbalanced it will make anti-tank personnel completely useless. Until they patch it all back to normal anyway.

Everyone likes something different about battlefield, which is why battlefield provides so many map choices and styles. Just because you think 64 player and vehicles are important, doesnt mean the guy who wants 32 player karkand is wrong.

It would be easier to stomach if infantry rocket launchers hadn’t become completely obsolete against engineers. In helicopters, repairing in flight. Or even just jumping out of a tank to whip it back into shape within a couple seconds with a repair torch that should have a cooldown of some sort.

They gimped the defib paddles between BC2 and BF3 for the sake of realism but made the blowtorch able to repair a helicopter’s rotors in flight, and for squadmates to spawn directly inside a helicopter so if you lose an engineer he can just come right back and keep welding. Man, that’s one hell of a way to play, being the guy continually welding.

Au contraire, my tank-loving fellow. Guided missiles are where it’s at. Plucking helicopters out of the sky, two-shotting enemy tanks in a few seconds, and letting the guy in your turret actually have some fun shooting infantry.

So I gotta pay extra to get something more in line with actual Battlefield gameplay? No thanks EA. For me, BF3 was one of those rare moments where I ended up really regretting my purchase. I won’t make that mistake again in the future.

First lets deal with the Haters that hate because its only on origin. Well guess what, you can buy it at retail stores, and on on most Digital download storefronts. Only steam was cut out, because steam is trying to force all Developers to sell the DLC through steam. Sorry I dont agree with that kind of bullying from anyone, even if it is the so called “sacred savior of pc gaming steam”. If steam was smart they would have put together an alternate deal for them. The game requiring origin is no different than buying a game from steam and still requiring ubisofts drm, or any other drm. They both work find, i play plenty of games that use steam, and required GFWL. I remember the day i brought half life 2 home from the retail store, oh look i have to install this thing called steam. wtf, why did i install and still need to download crap. You can buy Valve games on origin, but not the DLC. Shame on Steam for that. Steam should play by the same rules that they force on other developers. Steam and Origin are the same thing, neither give the best deals on games, there are other Digital download places that run better sales, and better normal prices. So please hate on Origin for something legit, not just because it is EA.

Then we have the so called BF Elites that seem to think that battlefield experience is only defined by what they think is fun. Battlefield has always provided content for all styles of gameplay, from small infantry focused maps, to large vehicle focused, and everything inbetween. The battlefield experience is not only 64 player on dragon valley, its 32 player on karkand, and 16 on mashtuur, infantry only modes, and everything else. Battlefield has always catered to way different crowds, and they have always caught flak because they didnt make every single map absolutely massive with lots of vehicles, or they made the maps to big because and people cant find anyone to kill. Everyone have always had different requirements for a good battlefield match. Some people think that 64 player is to chaotic, some people love that chaos, some people love vehicles and aircraft, some hate those maps. A long time ago they released stats and Karkand was the most popular map, and 32-48 was the most popular amount of players. The biggest maps were quite often the least played.

Granted, i am a 64 player big map type of person, but I also realize that what makes battlefield awesome for me, might not be the same that is for someone else. In that regard, battlefield 3 is the finest battlefield game we have seen to date.

Commissar, congrats for being the biggest wanker I’ve yet seen on this board.

I had the +1 rank, what, General of the Army or some shit in BF2.

I WILL NOT BUY BATTLEFIELD 3 because of Origin.

I am glad you like it, but I think EA is a piece of shit company that looks to bleed suckers like you of the money you earn at whatever it is you do. DLC everything, paid unlocks, all kinds of marketing crap.

Valve on the other hand I can get behind.

I could buy BF3 and own suckers like you all day long, instead I will be more discriminating because I want Origin to go down in flames, thanks bye.

I know, I can’t stand the RPS idiots who say “No steam no buy”. Steam is a form of DRM that has a broken offline mode and a wonky updating process. Origin is the same thing, but with a functional offline mode. I only have 6 games on Origin, it boots up very quickly, and it works with no fuss. I enjoy EA game like Battlefield, and I can’t STAND mindless idiots on this forum calling me an “EA shill” for saying so. I will continue to enjoy Battlefield while most of these posters drown in their rage and butthurt.

Sorry for the side rant. Just look at the scene that take’s place between 1:16 and 1:19 and compare it with the one at the 5:29 and with a straight face tell me Dice doesn’t have a Battle Recorder, you know the one they had for free in BF2.
It’s the exact same scene, an ATV getting nailed by a rocket while rolling trough a tree only it is viewed from a different angle. That can be done only if you have a program that can record a game code based.
The BF3 community is asking for this feature ever since game launched.
But I guess it wont happen, since they don’t want to make anyone believe that is just like the good old days when we’ve been handed Mod toolkits.
I’m pissed right now.

But remember what they said before! The Frostbyte engine is so advanced and difficult to use only trained professionals can use it! It’s so difficult to use why they’re even using it to make the new F2P Command & Conquer game!

BF2 Battle Recorder wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, but was there mainly due to the period when developers where competing to please their customers. But as the things changed and the customers became “consumers” the respect for the paying crowd went down. Also the “casual consumers”, which is the new business target, requires less effort from developers part.
I know world change and we should adapt, I can understand that a company can decide what goes to the public, but I can’t adapt to being insulted by telling me that “it’s too hard” to use a feature that I’m asking for. It’s borderline patronizing and again insulting.
Obviously they’ve lost a customer.

DICE has said that they have one, but it is a buggy POS that runs as it’s own independent program. It is used to make the trailers. Due to the bugginess, DICE has decided not to release it. You may whine and complain and bitch, but in the end, DICE, not you decides what to do with their engine.

The thing that killed BF3 for me, was it seems like, to me at least, they fractured the community too much. I don’t like buying DLC, I hardly ever purchase it, and when I do, It’s normally in some sort of GOTY bundle or somesuch.

Most of the servers that come up for vanilla BF3 in my region are empty, bar a few that seem to be constantly full – I refuse to line up to play a game, it’s for stooges.
I do not know if I buy the ‘premium’ edition or all the DLC that has come out now will fix the problem, and I certainly am not going to try it.

Buying BF3 turned out to be a mistake that has left a bitter taste in my mouth.
/rant